Peter Frumhoff

Director of Science & Policy

Peter C. Frumhoff is director of science and policy and chief climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). He guides organizational-wide strategies to bring robust scientific expertise to bear on strengthening public understanding and public policies; develops new cross-program science and policy initiatives; and serves as senior liaison with the scientific community, policymakers and the media. A global change ecologist, he has published and lectured widely on climate science and policy, the climate responsibilities of fossil fuel companies, the energy-water-climate nexus, and the conservation and management of tropical forests and biological diversity.

He serves on the board of atmospheric sciences and climate of the US National Academy of Sciences, the board of directors of the American Wind Wildlife Institute, the steering committee for the Center for Science and Democracy at UCS, and the Board of Editors of Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene. Previously, he served on the Advisory Committee on Climate Change and Natural Resource Science at the US Department of Interior, and the Board of Editors of Ecological Applications.

He was a lead author of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, lead author of the 2000 IPCC Special Report on Land Use, Land-use Change and Forestry and Chair of the 2007 Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment (NECIA). He was the 2014 Cox Visiting Professor in the School of Earth Sciences at Stanford University. Previously, he taught at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Harvard University and the University of Maryland, and was a AAAS Science and Diplomacy Fellow at the US Agency for International Development. He is a non-faculty associate of the Harvard University Center for the Environment.

Dr. Frumhoff is quoted frequently in print and electronic media and has given congressional testimony on multiple occasions. He received a PhD in ecology and MA in zoology from the University of California at Davis, and a B.A. in psychology from the University of California at San Diego.

The Limits of Doubt-Mongering. The Hill. February 23 2011 (with Naomi Oreskes). Available here.

Other

Peter Frumhoff and a panel discussion (including Gus Speth) on “Who is Responsible for Climate Change?” on October 16, 2015 — watch a video of the event.

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